I generally get where I’m going without a map although I may take a look at it before hitting the road. On a rare occasion I pull out the map and try to find a new backroad as I’m a sucker for no-traffic and seeing the off the beaten path sights.
Along the lines of parts counter banter, here’s one from another perspective and very humorous while having some truth to it.
Well I’ll confess being totally lost a couple times. This was before GPS but I had a map but my car had no compass. We were at my FIL’s 200 miles away and settling up the estate. I decided to head south about 40 miles for a little breather. I took the back road instead of the interstate. Coming back in the dark, I knew I was lost when I passed the same and only gas station for the third time going around in a circle. I even stopped to ask for directions but still put on another 20 miles trying to get back to a familiar road and home again.
Did it another time too closer to home. They had a portion of the highway closed and decided to take a different detour. I had no idea where I was but at least I knew I was heading in the right direction due to the sun. I called home saying I didn’t know where I was but was bound to come out sometime. I ended up about ten miles north of my town but at least knew where I was.
Actually a third time we were coming back from Florida pulling the camper in a snow storm going through Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They had been working on the road for years and it was very confusing getting through there and north again. Missed it somehow and ended up on a gravel road. Couldn’t turn around with the camper and the snow very easily so just kept going. Finally found a west gravel road and took that and finally got back to our route. It is a little disconcerting though driving blind.
Now if you’re lost in the woods, head for high ground or follow the creek.
GPS is nice, but sense of direction is better. I’ll probably never get lost here in NH or MA. I know that if I’m somewhere in Methuen MA and head south I’ll eventually run into I-95 or I-495. But there are places where you need GPS to find a destination. Narrow unlit roads with extremely few street signs. I had to take my middle son to Westford MA high-school for a BB tournament. I must have made 30 left or right turns getting there. Tough to memorize directions like that and almost impossible to find at night while driving New Englands roads.
That was good @Ok4450.
Yosemite
^
It was beyond good!
“I’ll confess being totally lost a couple times”
Let me relate a tale of somebody who was absolutely, totally, and without reason–lost.
This goes back to my days at the Citgo service facility on The NJ Turnpike, circa 1969:
I spied a car entering the station from the “Police and Turnpike Authority vehicles only” access road. Our station was on the southbound side of the tpk, near Exit 16. and this access road–which ran underneath the highway–was built so that police cars and turnpike service trucks could access our facility from the northbound lanes.
The driver asked for directions while I filled his tank, which wasn’t unusual.
What was unusual was what he asked me, which was…How do I find Exit 9?
I replied that the exits were numbered sequentially, and that if he drove south from our station, he would pass exits 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, and then he would see the signs for Exit 9.
He then stated that he had already driven that way, and after not being able to find Exit 9, he left the tpk at exit 8, and drove back north. That was how he wound up in our station, after again passing exit 9, as well as exits 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15, and then veering onto the access road that he shouldn’t have been using.
I essentially told him that he just needed to pay attention to the exit numbers as he drove south again, and because Exit 9 was one of the busiest interchanges on the entire roadway (with a HUGE sign), it should be pretty obvious when he came to it. I also mentioned that the large Turnpike Authority building loomed over that exit, making for a very good landmark (if somebody was somehow unable to understand a huge sign displaying the words “Exit 9”)
The story is not over…unfortunately…
About an hour later, he drove back into our facility–again via the “forbidden” access road–and this time he was nearly in tears as he told me that he still couldn’t find Exit 9. At this point, I looked carefully to see if there was a hidden camera in his car, as this seemed like a set-up for Candid Camera. However, the car appeared to contain only him and a woman of about the same age. I recall that the car had out-of-state plates, but I don’t recall which state.
So, being boringly consistent, I simply repeated my earlier instructions about counting-down the exit numbers and not allowing himself to become distracted.
I still can’t understand this guy’s dilemma, and I did rule-out a Candid Camera set-up, so I have to conclude that this guy wouldn’t have been able to find his way out of a theater with clearly-marked exit signs. Perhaps his cousin is the clueless/helpless customer in ok4450’s video.
For anyone bored enough to read this saga enjoy. Long ago I spent a few weeks at Mt Fuji Japan and for some reason an officer needed to get to downtown Tokyo and I was chosen to drive. The Tomei Espressway had the major exchanges in English and I had a map of the area and found the destination, dropped of the passenger and because most roads were one way couldn’t back track and the map didn’t designate the direction of one way streets. Following ‘dead reckoning’ I found the Expressway but no entrance so I zig-zagged through the neighborhood on streets so narrow that I could reach out and touch street signs on either side. This went on for many miles at walking speed until I ran out of gas. Some shop keepers helped push the Jeep off the road and I walked away hoping to find someone who spoke English. In less than a mile I found a 4 lane road and saw a filling station. I bought empty Coca-Cola bottles and filled them with gasoline, walked back to the Jeep and got it started and drove back to the station to get more fuel. At that time the exchange rate was 360y/$ and gasoline was more than 100y/liter as best I can remember but it was expensive so I bought all that the Yen in my pocket would buy and off again. With the Expressway often a rocks throw away from me behind a berm I gave up driving the streets and shifted to 4x4 to get over a berm and up a steep incline onto the expressway going the wrong direction so I picked my way across to the south bound side and finally continued on. It was dark and cold when I got back but no police or MPs were following me.
On a recent trip to Britain, we programmed the GPS for the Cardiff Castle in Wales. It led us to the other side of town to a truck and bus graveyard. The voice proudly announced: “Arriving at destination on left”!
Since we could actually see the castle it was no bid deal.
GPS leaves a lot to be desired.
On one of my sojourns to Las Cruces, NM…both of the GPSs in our “convoy” wanted to take us on I-40 to I-25 just east of Albuquerque, then south.
HOWEVER, you save at least 150 miles by getting off I40 around Amarillo and taking the US-routes through Hereford TX, Roswell NM, and catching I25 around Alomogordo. (Downside being, you have to smell Hereford!)
In most of the more populous parts of the US, US-routes are old, outdated, and slow–but in southern NM, there never was enough demand to justify interstates–and the US routes still are the main travel roads conbecting these cities–with PSL >=65 outside city limits.
Clearly, the GPSes were programmed with “one size fits all” info regarding the suitability of interstates and US routes…
On my last trip to Austin I drove there on US 79 from Shreveport to Austin and my friend felt sure that the GPS route through Dallas on Interstate was faster. She drove the first leg and the traffic in Dallas kept us tied up for 2 hours. It was a big mistake.
And that old highway 79 has a slow traffic lane on hills. Trucks and slower cars will move to the right to allow traffic to pass. It’s amazing how well things work out when people pay attention and use common sense.
Two weeks ago I was out near Phoenix, helping a friend. He took me for a drive in the mountains and I noted that we were on Hy88. After driving a ways he said that this little berg…Tortilla Flats …was the last chance for a bottle of water or a bathroom break.
After a few more miles the Nice paved road turned into a gravel road yet the signs still said Hy88. The road was plenty wide enough for two way traffic, but with all the hairpin curves and blind corners cars were never going more than about 40 mph tops.
It was a real eye opener…me being from SE Wisconsin where there has not been a gravel road for the last 30 years.
I want to go back and I’d love to drive through those mountains myself on the next visit.
Then I came home to temperatures in the teens…I want to go back!!!
Yosemite
So there we were going from chicago to Fl. Letting my new gf be copilot we got through the city, and on we went. Boy there sure are a lot of michigan license plates says I, next sign I notice Battle Creek x miles. Missed the turn for I 65 south, heck of a detour.
Had some friends that rented an rv to go to madi gras, prankster bud after 4 hours into the trip home got off the I and started heading south instead of north, then called for releif driver. After about an hour realized he was driving the wrong direction.
Another funny was working in San fran for a door to door sales photo biz. Now either the crew liked a new guy or they did not. One guy had to go to the bathroom, so they stopped by a gay bar and said they will let you use the bathroom, I am sure they did, but the guy was panic stricken running out of the place.
Another guy who offered to drive, was a follow us, but if you mention it is whoevers birthday they will let you pass the tollgate for free. Now the guy paid the first 3 tolls, for us and his car behind us, so they just waved him through. the 4th toll no pay for the car behind. The guy got arrested for publicintoxication for demanding he could get through the toll free if he mentioned whoevers birthday.
Well if you made it that far, you should have just gone on to South Bend and taken in the Studebaker Museum, then head south.